Authorities, others agree: truck stop prostitution far from victimless crime
By DOROTHY COX
The Trucker Staff, 12/5/2008
Sarah Cleveland, 25, of Fort Worth, Texas, shown at left with her husband, Anthony Cleveland, 22, says she was really steamed about the prostitute activity she witnessed first-hand while she was in training to get her CDL. Her trainer kicked her out of the truck twice so he could be with a prostitute, once in Seattle and once in Iowa, she said.(The Trucker/Lyndon Finney)
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles on truck stop prostitution, not in an attempt to glorify the seediness, nor to cast blame, but hopefully, to educate those who think it’s a victimless crime. In our research into this age-old problem, we found it’s anything but victimless and rooted firmly in the criminal underworld. Look for the second installment Dec. 19.
On an unusually warm October night I am at a Central Arkansas truck stop, a facility where over-the-road drivers have told several reporters from The Trucker there is little or no prostitute activity.
The facility’s brightly lit sign is in stark contrast to the murky shadows that fade to inky black the further away you get from the building.
My news source for this trip, Scott, is in his mid 40s and was an over-the-road driver from 1983 to 1992, at which time he began “pushing paper.” He still has his CDL and knows how to talk like a trucker. In fact, he says, he still considers himself to be a trucker, even though he has a desk job, now, and rarely gets behind the wheel of a big rig.
It’s approximately 9:45 and most drivers are tucked in for the night: there are only a handful of rigs pulling in or out. It’s a Thursday, and things appear to be pretty slow on the lot.
But after talking a scant few minutes on his CB, Scott has located a young woman who is selling triple X-rated adult movies out of her car and who says she has been told it is OK to sell hundreds of the DVDs in the parking lot as long as she can’t be seen from the windows of the truck stop. And she adds in response to a question from Scott that yes, she can connect him with some “commercial company.”
She also shares that anyone needing her exact location can get directions from the truck stop security guard. But before she can sell any of her “movies” or get Scott hooked up with “company,” the police arrive. Since they haven’t heard her comments on the CB about how the security guard is helping her out or her assurances that she can provide a prostitute, and since she apparently had applied to get a license to sell the DVDs, they let the woman go but cuff her boyfriend and take him away for a prior “failure-to-appear” on another charge.
A police spokesman said in a misdemeanor such as this if the cops don’t actually see the sale taking place, they can’t make an arrest. The girl follows the cop car with her boyfriend in it and tells truckers over the CB that she’ll be back the next night.
Other truckers get on the CB selling everything from their personal BlackBerries and IPods to a set of board stretchers, and it’s not even 10:30. And then a girl who calls herself Stacey asks languidly if the cops are gone. She intermittently fades in and out on the CB, bantering with drivers in a sexy tone.
After about 15 minutes Stacey is back on the CB, her signal louder and stronger than before. She’s ready to do business and asks Scott to tell her where his truck is. Then another trucker gets on the channel and offers to direct Stacey our way.
Little do they suspect that we’re not in a big rig at all; we’re in a huge dually pick-up with tinted windows and a powerful CB. We manage to clear out before Stacey walks our way.
Some truckers are ready to help prostitutes, Scott says, because they view their “business” as a type of free enterprise and they view prostitution as a victimless crime.
Indeed, in response to a crackdown on prostitution in Oklahoma earlier this year one trucker commented that “I don’t want my tax dollars being spent on arresting people trying to make a living.”
Another lamented, “Everyone needs a job. At least they are making money.”
Unlike street walkers, lot lizards may not necessarily be working with a pimp.
Sometimes, says Scott, they will hook up with a driver who lives in the area of the truck stop and while he’s away they may turn tricks at his house and then play housewife when he comes back into town.
No harm, no foul, some would say.
Tell that to the two 14-year-old cousins from Ohio who accidentally got into the wrong car on a rainy afternoon on their way to a Wendy’s two blocks from their homes. One of the girls thought the man driving was a friend of her father’s.
She told ABC News Primetime Crime that she eventually wound up in an 18-wheeler at a Michigan truck stop and was brutally forced to go from truck to truck servicing truck drivers.
To his credit, a “disgusted” trucker finally noticed how young the girls were and called the cops.
Under-age girls (and boys) being forced into prostitution against their will has become such a problem that the Innocence Lost Initiative was established in 2003 to gather federal law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, social services providers and others together through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to attack the problem nationwide instead of treating it solely on a local basis.
One undercover agent in the Washington D.C. Child Exploitation Squad says he has seen child victims as young as 12, according to the FBI’s national Web site. The FBI notes that arresting adult prostitutes often leads to the discovery of underage victims.
Or ask Joe Parker, who used to run a now-defunct “john class” in Portland, Ore., if prostitution is a victimless crime.
Parker’s classes were designed to educate “johns” caught in prostitution sting operations, and those who took the course could get their fines reduced. During the classes Parker told the “johns” about the dangers of venereal disease being passed to them and their girlfriends or wives, and that far from being victimless, men soliciting sex are paying pimps who are acting as subcontractors, with the money used to beat the prostitutes and keep them in submission.
Even if pimps aren’t involved, it is Parker’s contention that prostitution has far-reaching effects in the community from the diseases incurred, to the illegal drugs used to numb their pain and their consciences, to their connections with organized crime and even gang activity.
In fact, the FBI estimates that 55 percent of street gangs are involved in prostitution to some degree.
Sgt. Terry Kuykendall, public information officer for the North Little Rock, Ark., police, says in his experience, truck stop prostitution nearly always involves runaways and drugs, especially drugs. “One way or another it all relates back to drugs,” with the drug of choice being either crack cocaine or methamphetamines, he told The Trucker. But, he added that preferred drugs can change with the locale.
No one knows exactly how pervasive truck stop prostitution is, but Kuykendall says “even when there are no complaints [about prostitution] it’s still an issue; it’s an issue all across the United States [involving] runaway teens and drug addicts. That’s why they’re there [at truck stops].”
Some think prostitution may be escalating because of the worsening economy.
Scott tells of male and female college students who get on the CB advertising for specific sexual services so they can make a lot of money in a short amount of time.
“Cash talks,” he says. He believes that the tanking economy has resulted in more homeless women, “women [who] are struggling to make ends meet … the economy is pushing [the incidence of prostitution]. Some [prostitutes] could be beauty queens; they could be your sister or my daughter. It’s stepped up even more because it’s an easy buck.”
Martin Edgar, 44, an owner-operator from El Paso, Texas, told The Trucker that “I don’t trash around” but from what he’s seen, truck stop prostitution is “pretty heavy,” around the country, especially in the Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside, Calif., areas.
“San Bernardino,” adds the 24-year career driver, “is a movie in itself. They dance out there [at the truck stops] for you. The drivers take their [barbecue] grills and grill outside and watch the show go on.”
But it is newbie driver Sarah Cleveland, 25, of Fort Worth, Texas, who was really steamed about the prostitute activity she witnessed first-hand.
Cleveland, who is married to 22-year-old driver Anthony Cleveland, says when she was undergoing her second three-week stint of training to get her CDL her trainer kicked her out of the truck twice so he could be with a prostitute, once in Seattle and once in Iowa.
“And he [the trainer] was married with three kids,” she says, adding that the trainer was heavy into pornography. “He only trained women,” she notes.
Sarah Cleveland adds that once when she got on the CB to ask for directions a hooker screamed at her for being in her territory. “She thought I was her competition.”
Next: how prostitutes become drawn in and trapped in the lifestyle.
Dorothy Cox of The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at dlcox@thetrucker.com.